Military History Book Club

The American War in Afghanistan  –  Carter Malkasian – 2020

Prestonwood CC, 15909 Preston Road, Dallas, TX. Please arrive by 7:30 a.m. to order from the menu.  Breakfast is $15.  Discussion: from 7:30 to 9:00

Facilitator –  Robert Epstein: Texas Guard- Military Police Brigade; Civil Air Patrol University Instructor. 

The American war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001, was the longest armed conflict in our history. This book is a comprehensive history of the war, arguing that one of the main reasons for the Taliban’s success was their deep connection to the religious and social identity of Afghanistan, and that the inability of the American-supported Afghan government to attract popular support and retain control of the country was due to Afghans’ viewing the American military as a foreign occupying power. “The very presence of Americans in Afghanistan trod on what it meant to be Afghan… Any Afghan government, however good, however democratic, was going to be imperiled as long as it was aligned with the United States.” 

Carter Malkasian provides the first comprehensive history of the conflict, from 2001 to 2020. Malkasian is both a leading academic authority on the subject and an experienced practitioner, having spent nearly two years working in the Afghan countryside and later serving as the senior advisor to General Joseph Dunford, the US military commander in Afghanistan and later the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Drawing from a deep well of local knowledge, understanding of Pashto, and review of primary source documents, Malkasian moves through the war’s multiple phases: the 2001 invasion and after; the light American footprint during the 2003 Iraq invasion; the resurgence of the Taliban in 2006, the Obama-era surge, and the various resets in strategy and force allocations that occurred from 2011 onward, culminating in the 2018-2020 peace talks. Malkasian lived through much of it, and draws from his own experiences to provide a unique vantage point on the war. Today, the Taliban rules Afghanistan.  Although Osama bin Laden was killed and no major attack on the American homeland was carried out after 2001, the United States was unable to end the violence or successfully hand off the war to the Afghan government, which collapsed without US military backing. 

Kabul airport evacuation, August 2021: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Kabul_airlift

12 Strong:  https://www.amazon.com/12-Strong-Declassified-Story-Soldiers/dp/1501178512

RSVP to Bob Epstein at: macabee1948@gmail.com.